


souffles or star storms

by divineglass



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Baking, F/M, Fluff, Soufflés, and just a dash of Time Lord angst, with a side mention of all three Ponds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-20
Updated: 2013-02-20
Packaged: 2017-11-29 22:21:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/692141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/divineglass/pseuds/divineglass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor is finally getting used to having someone else in the TARDIS. The fact that it smells constantly of chocolate and raspberries helps.</p>
            </blockquote>





	souffles or star storms

**Author's Note:**

> So it's only 38 days until March 30th? Here is a random bit of Clara/Eleven fluff to help tide us over for the next month. Hope you enjoy. :)
> 
> (My apologies for the random angst in the beginning. It doesn't last!)

He is finally getting used to having someone else in the TARDIS. The fact that it smells constantly of chocolate and raspberries helps. Someone breathing, someone alive, someone who couldn’t zap away in an instant with a Vortex manipulator strapped to her wrist.  
  
Sometimes the TARDIS is too painful for River to stay for too long, and he understands. Sometimes it is too painful for him to stay in for too long, although the redecoration of the control room certainly helps. He finds himself always, eternally grateful for his TARDIS. She knows what he needs--and the orange warmth of the previous control room reminded him of the ginger waves of Amy Pond and the almost fatherly love of Rory Williams.  
  
He parked his police box on the cloud above London in 1803, watching, always watching, as the humans below went about their simple lives. He took River ice skating on the River Thames in 1814 with Stevie Wonder as their personal guest. He saved the life of Madam Vastra in 1817 as a lynch mob made to kill her in the center of London. He went back in his timeline to one brief, painful moment to inform his past self (by note) that he was to call on Madam Vastra and Jenny for the battle of Demon’s Run. It took all he had to prevent himself from interfering with events, but he left. He watched as the railway system expanded out of London, through the Irish immigration from the Great Famine and the waves of stench of the Great Stink in the 1850s. He watched as the sewer system was built (I thought that would never happen, he thought, as he breathed in moderately fresh air in 1866). He even watched as Madam Vastra began to solve cases with a newly-alive Commander Strax and her new wife Jenny, making the odd visit, but never, ever staying for long.  
  
But in 1892, when the brunette with the sharp tongue had confronted him about the snowmen and all had unfolded, he found a new bounce in the step that had so long been heavy as he walked about Victorian London. Her death and tombstone had been the start of a new adventure.  
  
He found her two weeks ago, stumbling through the graveyard where her tombstone stuck crookedly out of the overgrown lawn, and she welcomed the escape from her life, with an awkward non-relationship with a girl called Nina (or was it Rory?) and a yearning to see the universe.  
  
Clara’s footsteps from the corridor bring him out of his reverie, and he slides a hand over his face before she enters the control room. He attempts to look busy, fiddling with the monitor’s dials, as she comes into the room with an excited “Doctor!”  
  
He whips around, attempting to make his facial expression normal. It almost works, save for the glint to his eyes that talks of the past and too much pain. “Clara!” he exclaims in return, and she sticks her tongue out at him as she comes around the console to stand next to him.  
  
“I’ve done it!” Her hair is pulled back in a haphazard ponytail and her face is speckled with bits of flour and cocoa powder. A streak of what looks like marmalade resides across the top of her apron, perhaps smeared there by hasty fingers, mixed with a large splash of flour which might explain the bits of it on her cheeks. Above the white-freckled cheeks, her eyes are alight with excitement. “My souffle! It didn’t burn!”  
  
Without allowing him to respond, she grabs his hand, her fingers entwining with his, and drags him rather unceremoniously down the corridor to the TARDIS kitchen. The room itself is brighter than the control room, the light more white than blue, and currently, home to a mess of flour and several burnt souffles. But on top of the counter, next to a big stand mixer and a bag of sugar, rests a white souffle dish with a risen, yet unburnt, souffle. She lets go of his hand to motion towards the dessert in question, a bright grin on her face.  
  
He takes a few uncoordinated steps towards the counter and bends over to sniff the pastry. It smells of warm raspberries and dark chocolate, a scent he is beginning to associate with Clara based on how often she bakes. He moves on to the three other burnt souffles on the counter, poking one with a long finger and smiling as it deflates--for which he gets a playful smack on the top of his arm. “Ow,” he whines, looking to Clara. “It’s burnt; you weren’t going to do anything with it anyway!”  
  
“It’s the principle,” she says, sniffing in an affected manner at him. “Besides, _those_ aren't the important ones.” Clara walks over to the refrigerator, opening the freezer and pulling out a pint of vanilla ice cream. She busies herself for a moment, preparing the souffle and concealing her work with her small frame (if he tries, he can peek around her, but the last time he did, she kicked him in the shin without even looking at him--he is still trying to figure that one out).  
  
“Clara, in the year 2.1 slash Apple slash 32, the Triangulum Galaxy is currently absorbing the Small Magellanic Cloud and creating the most beautiful star storm in recorded history, and we could be on our way there now, but--”  
  
She turns around and hits him squarely on the nose with an oven mitt drenched in flour, which sets off a cloud that settles on his face and across the top of his vest and bowtie. “Shut it, you,” she retorts, and pulls the plate out from behind her back, the souffle dish wobbling precariously against the mismatched china. It is decorated with a scoop of ice cream, two raspberries, and a green leaf which the Doctor presumes is mint, and he can’t help but smile at the effort she has put in to prepare a souffle.  
  
He takes the souffle from her hands--the shaking of the dish is worrying him--and places it on the counter once more before taking her head gently between both of his hands and pressing a dusty kiss on her forehead. “It looks fantastic,” he says, pulling away, and brushes a stray lock of brown behind her ear.  
  
It’s small, but he thinks that the touch of his fingertips across her cheeks makes her breath hitch before she smiles and turns to look at it on the counter. “Thanks,” she replies, and grabs a spoon, sticks it in the dessert, and takes a bite.  
  
And makes a face. “I think I forgot the brown sugar.”  
  
He isn’t certain whether to smile or frown, and for a moment his face is an interesting mix of troubled and amused, and she picks up the oven mitt to hit him again. This time, the flour ends up across his torso. “You can laugh now, Chin Boy,” she says, and continues, “But next time, _you’re_ trying the first bite.”  
  
He doesn’t mind the idea.  
  



End file.
